Sugar, rice and everything nice: Mobilizing voter turnout in Egypt’s presidential election | MadaMasr
▻https://www.madamasr.com/en/2018/03/28/feature/politics/sugar-rice-and-everything-nice-mobilizing-voter-turnout-in-egypts-presiden
While President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and members of his campaign have spoken sparsely on his sole competitor in the current presidential election, much has been said about the importance of securing a high turnout.
Preparing to embark on his second presidential term after the election results, widely presumed to be predetermined, Sisi has called on citizens to head to the polls in order to send a message to the world. State bureaucrats, businessmen and private institutions are working together to ensure that this message is successfully delivered by providing the electorate with an array of incentives in exchange for their vote.
Ink for wages
Officials across a number of state institutions have put measures in place to ensure employees’ participation in the 2018 presidential election. Several companies divided their workforce into three groups, with each going to vote on one of the three election days, in order to guarantee that employees’ trips to the polls do not hamper productivity.
Management at the state-owned Petrotrade company had the employees whose turn it was to go to the polls sign in their attendance to work in the morning, then head to cast their votes, Salma*, an employee at the company, told Mada Masr. The employees were told that their time away from the workplace would only be counted as a paid workday if they proved their vote by showing their ink stained fingers. Phosphorous ink is used in polling stations across the country to ensure that no one votes twice.
Throughout the past few weeks, the company encouraged its employees to attend events organized by the Sisi campaign. Members of staff were offered an out-of-office work assignment wage for two days if they attended the events, Salma said. However, employee attendance at the last conference held before voting began was obligatory, she added.
Meanwhile, Samy*, who works in the Zagazig Public Hospital, told Mada Masr that the local health directorate notified management at several public hospitals to divide doctors into two groups to go vote, with each group heading to the polls on either the first or second day of voting.
A representative from a local education directorate in Gharbiya was filmed threatening to cut teachers’ wages during the three-day election period if they could not prove that they voted, given that schools had assigned these days as paid leave.
In a video circulated on Facebook on Monday, the representative tells teachers that they must print the phosphorous ink from their fingertips directly onto cards distributed to them by the education directorate. These cards should then be sent to the directorate so authorities there can track the teachers who cast their votes.